Hamed Ghashghavi

When on Sep. 2012 he came back to Iran, Ghashghavi was asked by Reza Montazami, Iranian diplomate, and the founder of these international gatherings, to collaborate for 3^rd edition of International Hollywoodism Conference which later attracted the attention of Foreign Policy and Anti-Defamation League. Because of the efficiency of efforts made by him and the team led by late Nader Talebzadeh, iconic international figure to prepare a platform for American and European independent academicians, thinkers, writers, and media analysts to speak out in Iranian universities and to participate in Q/A sessions across the country, On February 13. 2019, when he was the New Horizon Organization's Secretary for International Affairs, pursuant to E.O. 13224, Hamed Ghashghavi was sanctioned by US Treasury Department’s office of Foreign Assets Control at the highest possible level (SDGT: Specially Designated Global Terrorist) becoming Iran's youngest US sanctioned person at the age of 29. The whole activity made the US establishment very angry to that extent that they announced punishments such as 20 years of imprisonment, sanctions, heavy fines and exit prohibition for guests of the future conferences.

New Horizon as a multinational entity was sanctioned as well. Executive Order 13224 is an executive order issued by U.S. President George W. Bush on September 23, 2001, as a response to the attacks on September 11, 2001. It has been renewed every year since. In general terms, the Order provides a means by which to disrupt the financial support network for so-called terrorists and terrorist organizations by authorizing the U.S. Department of State, in consultation with the U.S. Departments of the Treasury and Justice, to designate and block the assets of foreign individuals and entities that commit, or pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism defined by US establishment.

American guests have been facing threats and harassments from the FBI. The guests informed the organizers that the FBI security agents have appeared at their doorsteps, warning them of “dire consequences” if they “ever tried to the New Horizon Conference again.” In mid-August, three of the guests broke the news in interviews with Press TV, revealing that they have been warned by the FBI of a wide range of punishments from $50,000 in fine to years in prison. Former Pentagon official Michael Maloof, a former U.S. diplomat in Saudi Arabia J. Michael Springmann, and Scott Rickard, a former service member to the U.S. Air Force and NSA, said that the aim of such bullying and threats was to “prevent Americans from learning about Iran, experiencing Iran, and exchanging ideas with anyone from Iran.”

As Ghashghavi is in touch with more than 200 American and European anti-Zionist and anti-Imperialist academics, media commentators, politicians and activists, in the letter of recommendation of Major-General Solaimani’s deputy for American affairs to a high-ranking Iranian official about Hamed, written two years ago, it has been mentioned: 

    "....We recognize him as being fluent in French, Arabic and English.....and in addition, he benefits from high potential regarding international relations .... During the past …. years the aforementioned person in the frame of ….. and constructing the lobby of ............... in ‎Europe and US, had a worthy and effective cooperation with …..”

Hamed's mind has been and is still being influenced by watching and listening to hundreds of debates and lectures of Prof. Tariq Ramadan, Malcolm X, Sheikh Khalid Yasin, Sheikh Ahmed Deedat, Prof. Chomsky, Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, Michel Foucault, Prof. Edward Said, the one-man-shows of Dieudonné, and many discussion panels in both Oxford and Cambrigde Union Societies as well as the conversations organized by Mehdi Hasan.

By the grace of Hamed's diversified researches many of those voices from Europe and US traveled to Iran for the first time in order to attend the Hollywoodism and New Horizon Conferences. As the former assistant of Nader Talebzadeh's TV shows (Raz and Asr), by his efforts the Iranian audience could directly hear these voices expressing their viewpoints on different international, regional and social matters.

Actually the positive point of Hamed Ghashghavi is the fact that he has never been satisfied by identifying the new people and has never stopped his researches. Thus by making several bridges among those figures and activists in West, he got and still is getting in touch with more and more related persons.

January 2012 he returned to his hometown and since then he has held positions like the Secretary of International Affairs of the  3rd intl. Hollywoodism Conference, 2nd intl. New Horizon Conference (Independent Thinkers), 4th Intl. New Horizon Conference as well as the 1st Intl. Conference on Holy Prophet (pbuh), Cinema & World Literature (intl. Conf. on Holy Prophet Grand Prize).

Ghashghavi was appointed by Nader Talebzadeh  to search in order to find, contact and invite some guests for the International Conference on Decline of Empire which did not take place.

Ghashghavi has also worked as one of the organizers of the International relations of the 4th Ammar Popular Film Festival, hoax of Hollywood Conference, Iran’s 9th intl. Conference on Public Relations and the Islamic Awakening Conference series such Islamic Awakening and Ulama Conference, Muslim University Professors and Islamic Awakening conference, etc.

Ghashghavi has also organized two different conference in university of Tehran related to Latin America, in which ambassadors of Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua as well as Charge d' Affairs of Bolivia in Tehran were the main speakers. The 1st conference took place in summer 2015 for 500 elite students coming from different Iranian cities and the discussion panel topic was "the American Hostile Policies toward Latin America". The 2nd conference was held on occasion of ALBA's (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) anniversary. It's important to know in both mentioned conferences the American and European experts on South American studies such as Prof. James Petras and Dr. Maria Poumier expressed their analysis via Skype.

Then by request of Dr. Hamid Reza Moghaddam Far, top advisor to Major General Jafari in cultural affairs and ex-CEO of Fars New Agency and current Tasnim's CEO, Hamed was involved and engaged in order to send the 1st and 2nd letter of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to those American and European figures. 

From March 2016 to January 2017, he used to be the director of American and European affairs and closes advisor to deputy of international affairs of Tehran Ahlul-Bayt International University. Almost during the same time he was the Correspondent on North American and European Affairs in Committee for Supporting the Islamic Revolution of Palestinian People under the Presidency of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

He is currently the correspondence on American and European affairs in the secretariat of the 6^th International Conference on Supporting Palestinian Intifada which will be organized by the Iranian Parliament and will take place from February 21^st to February 22^nd of 2017 in Tehran. The Conference is held every 4 years and takes place in Iran International Conference Center and the Iranian Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and President Rouhani are successively the main speakers of the conference's opening and closing ceremonies. The conference would host more than 600 speakers and chairmen of parliament as well as the authorities from Muslim-majority countries in addition to American and European independent writers, academicians, former politicians and activists.

Due to his father's profession, he has lived 11 years of his life outside of Iran and has been in close contact with different cultures. His father, a graduate of Sorbonne University, is an Iranian diplomat with more than 3 decades of experience who served in Iranian embassies located in different European and African countries. He was the Director for African Institutions Department at Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and currently works as Iranian ambassador to Dakar.

Hamed was graduated from Tunis El Manar University (UTM) in Electronic and computer Science. (French University System) and is currently M.A student of faculty of world studies in University of Tehran.

Starting his education at university at the age of sixteen, He had no competence in other languages except Persian. He mastered French through self-study and social interactions with friend in about one year. Then he challenged his professors on different issues such as secular and religious doctrine through his newly acquired linguistic abilities.

Being a sophomore, he was interested in French music & then started ‎researching on the social situation of western countries particularly France. Step by step Ghashghavi ‎became interested in watching and analyzing the TV debates between French intellectuals. After different consultations with his teachers, almost ‎graduated from France universities, at the end of the 1st year M.Sc. in Electronic he has ‎decided to don’t continue his academic education.

By watching several debates of both Oxford & Cambridge union societies he get familiarized with the various cultural, social, political, scientific and intellectual issues discussed in West. From the very beginning once he saw some TV debates of Prof. Tariq Ramadan, he started to follow not only his dozen debates on French and Swiss televisions but also Ghashghavi began to read his articles and books and to watch Prof. Ramadan's conferences particularly in US, France, Canada, Belgium and other Western academic societies and public audience. He actually considers himself as an intellectually graduate of Tariq Ramadan's school of thought especially on art of debate! 

Mr. Ghashghavi has also been Responsible for the International Relations of the 13th Intl. Film Festival of Resistance for two month.

Being in touch with high-ranking independent academicians, politicians, authors, activists and media personalities whose names have been mentioned below, he has been engaged in interviewing some of them for several Iranian national TV channels and top news agencies as Fars, Tasnim, Mashregh, Nasim, Shana etc.

He was in charge of inviting the American and European speakers for the International Conference on US and Human Rights; Rhetoric and Reality that was supposed to take place in Feb. 2016 by Allameh Tabataba'i University as the Iran's largest specialized public university in humanities and social sciences but it has been postponed.

As a researcher of the Western European and North American studies and a biographer, he has authored the biographies of ‎more than 200 American and European anti-Zionist and anti-Imperialist figures in 500 pages! (in Persian)

In Aug. 2013, he authored one of his wonderful and unique works which was the collection of the letters of 72 American and European academicians ‎and former politicians and military faces to Iran’s Supreme Leader which has directly been sent to his esteemed office as well as the office of Iranian high-ranking officials in order to let them know about their activities to bring Justice, Truth ‎and Peace to our world. 

During these years, Hamed, by contacting different Iranian universities, could also invite a lot of those western figures to give ‎lecture and keep in touch with students around the country.

Grace of Hamed's works a lot of Iranian NGO, journalists and documentarians cooperating in high-ranking Iranian News ‎Agencies and also in IRIB could get in touch with those faces in order to interview them or make documentaries on their career.

According the many of the prominent anti-Zionist figures and anti-war activists, Hamed Ghashghavi has been and still is very effective and useful to promoting the network of the independent thinkers around the world.

During the mentioned conferences , he contacted and invited Fmr. Senator Mike Gravel, Dieudonné, Prof. Norman Finkelstein, Prof. Kevin J. Barrett, Dr. Gareth Porter, Prof. James H. Fetzer, Prof. Rodney Shakespeare, Prof. E. Michael Jones, Prof. Claudio Mutti, Prof. Claudio Moffa, Dr. Mateusz Piskorski, Dr. Maria Poumier, F. William Engdahl, Art Olivier, Merlin L. Miller, Mark E. Weber, Imam Mohammad al-Asi, Imam Abdul Alim Musa, Amir Sulaiman, Zaid Hamid, Ken O’keefe, Thierry Meyssan, William Rodriguez, Roberto Quaglia, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, Yvonne Ridley, Hervé Ryssen, Paul-Eric Blanrue, Patrick Besson, Darnell Stephen Summers, Aki Nawaz, Béatrice Pignède, Thomas Werlet, Olivier Lemoine, Dr. Talib Warsi, Dr. Franklin Lamb, Francesco Condemi, Manuel Galiana Ros, Imad Eddine Hamrouni, Pino Cabras, Antoine Ribas.

Most of these figures have visited Iran for the 1st time.

As the secretary of International Affairs of the 2nd New Horizon Conference that has been cancelled by the Rouhani Government, Hamed Ghashghavi has invited the following anti-Zionist, anti-Imperialist and anti-Capitalist personalities to visit Iran:

Congressman Jim McDermott, Prof. William O. Beeman, Prof. Webster Tarpley, Prof. Aleksandr Dugin, Dr. Rev. Stephen Sizer, Prof. Anthony James Hall, , Prof. John Mueller, Prof. Henry Veltmeyer, Prof. Peter Scholl-Latour, Dr. Hesham Tillawi, Dr. Peter Lavelle, Dr. Coleen Rowley, Dr. Daniele Ganser, Dr. Rev. Randy Short, G. Edward Griffin, William Blum, Ray McGovern, Fmr. Gov. Gary Johnson, Col. Ann Wright, Brady Kiesling, Danny Schechter, Alain Soral, Susan Lindauer, David Barsamian, Wayne Madsen, Leo Wanta, Medea Benjamin, Cindy Sheehan, Christopher Bollyn, Carol Brouillet, Gordon Duff, Grant F. Smith, Alison Weir, Judge John V. Whitbeck, Judge James P. Gray, Tim Pool, Luke Rudkowski, Robert Naiman, Cyrus McGoldrick, Mark Dankof, Mark Glenn, Peter Eyre, Gwynne Dyer, Chris Bambery, Kémi Séba, Jean-Michel Vernochet, Michel Collon, Gilles Munier, Christoph R. Hörstel, Rainer Rupp, Jürgen Cain Külbel, Giulietto Chiesa, Pepe Escobar, Baraka Blue, Phillip Tourney.
 
After one postponement and cancellation in Sept. 2013, the 2nd international New Horizon Conference is planned to be held early in Sept. 2014.

Hamed is also in touch with high-ranking independent academicians, politicians, authors, activists and media personalities, including:

Prof. Noam Chomsky, Fmr. Congressman Pete McCloskey, Prof. James Petras, Prof. Francis A. Boyle, Prof. Paul Craig Roberts, Prof. Richard A. Falk, Prof. Alain De Benoist, Prof. Kevin B. MacDonald,  Prof. John McMurtry, Prof. Jean Bricmont, Prof. David Ray Griffin, Prof. Juan Cole, Prof. Paul Larudee, Prof. Col. Andrew Bacevich, Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, Dr. Philip Girald, Dr. Flynt Leverett, Prof. Lawrence Davidson, Prof. Barrie Zwicker, Prof. Hamid Algar, Prof. Paul Sheldon Foote, Fmr. Rep. Paul Findley, Fmr. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, Gilad Atzmon, George Galloway, Jacob Cohen, Stephen Lendman, Etienne Chouard, Silvia Cattori, Jeff Blankfort, Jeff Gates, Jimmy Walter, Craig Murray, Sean Stone, Jurgen Elsasser, Hillary Mann Leverett, Christian Bouchet, Jean-Guy Allard, Hani Ramadam, Richard Gage, Maurizio Blondet, Imran Hosein, Vincent Reynouard, Alastair Crooke, Michael Collins Piper, Israel Shamir, Charles E. Carlson, Robert Baer, Lizzie Phelan, Yasmin Perni.

Hamed Ghashghavi has also exclusively interviewed many of these figures including Prof. James Petras, Prof. Kevin J. Barrett, Prof. James H. Fetzer, Prof. Anthony James Hall, Prof. Paul Sheldon Foote, David Barsamian, Dr. Rev. Stephen Sizer, Danny Schechter, Darnell Stephen Summers, Merlin L. Miller, Dr. Maria Poumier, Greta Berlin, Gordon Duff, Jim W. Dean. These exclusives interviews have been published in Fars News Agency, Tasnim News Agency and the web-site of Ammar Popular Film Festival.

Hamed Ghashghavi has published some notes of , Fmr. Gov. Gary Johnson and George Galloway and two letters to President Rouhani from Merlin L. Miller and Christoph R. Hörstel in Iran's most visited News Agency (Fars).